Retiree News

Ed McCormack designs artwork for his community

EVERY CRAFTSMAN IS an artist. In retirement, Ed McCormack, Local 592 (Tulsa, Oklahoma), has turned his welding art to crafting metal sculpture and furniture. Over the years, his artwork has ranged from an extraordinary public bench to bells of all sizes.

WHAT STARTED OUT as a loose network of retired Local D366 (Mississauga, Ontario) members that stayed in touch with one another has grown into something more, says Pierre Pommainville, who retired in 2009 from the Mississauga Cement Plant after 35 years. He organized a get-together for coffee back in 2010, and was pleased to see 15 retirees show up. That first event went so well that the group has more than doubled in size. Retirees from the Ogden Point Quarry are also part of the group. In 2016, Mississauga Cement Plant invited retirees from the group to celebrate its 60th anniversary.

Goodhart’s work is on display in homes and churches

A BOY WIELDING a hockey stick, a Canadian Catholic saint, a colorful turtle — these are some of Local 29 (Boston) retiree Edward Goodhart’s creations. In the 10 years since his retirement, Goodhart has combined his Boilermaker skills with sculpting techniques to bring his ideas to life using metal, wood and stone at his North Providence, Rhode Island, home.

Builders of original monument dedicate structure near Warren, PA

A SMALL GROUP of former Boilermakers who helped build the nation’s tallest monument, the 630-foot-tall Gateway Arch in St. Louis, can now look upon a 1/45 scale (14-foot-tall) version of the structure near Warren, Pennsylvania, the small town where they once worked on the famous project.

Show’s hosts barter for antiques

WILSON MULL, A retired member of Local 29 (Boston), bartered on the air with the hosts of the History Channel’s American Pickers during a December episode of the show. In addition to making money by selling off antiques, he gave the Boilermakers a positive mention at the beginning of the show, taped at his Rochester, Massachusetts, home.

FREDRICK W. MCDONALD, Jr. is using his passion for art to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. The Local 83 (Kansas City, Missouri) retiree created a 2017 calendar with his original art, including some drawings of children, in an effort to help St. Jude advance its mission to find cures and to prevent pediatric diseases.

“I WAS A mean kid,” admits Don Rojem, 86, a Michigan native and retired member of Local 169 (Detroit). “I just wasn’t cut out for school.”

After being twice kicked out for being a rebellious student, Rojem, at age 12, put formal education permanently behind him and began an adventure that ultimately led him to become a Boilermaker, a job he grew to love and would one day write about in a newfound passion for poetry.

Local 659 members constructed monument sections in Warren, Pa.

A SMALL CONTINGENT of former Boilermakers who helped build sections of the Gateway Arch were on hand at the Missouri History Museum Oct. 28 to commemorate the “topping out” of the national monument in 1965.

JIM DELSORDO has followed his passion for big game hunting across North America and as far away as South Africa. The Local 13 (Philadelphia) retiree and former lodge president is pictured with a gemsbok taken in South Africa in 2007. He has also hunted in Newfoundland, Canada (caribou); Wyoming (mule deer and antelope); and North Carolina (whitetail). During other trips to South Africa, he has taken a fallow deer and a kudu.